%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 Review #3978328 |
| (5.0)| Hi JaceCar   It's been pleasure to review yours "Invalid Entry" on behalf of WdC Angel Army Group. Please be reminded that I'm still newbie and that my review is based on one person's opinion and you have all rights to choose if you like it or not. So please feel free to use if you find something interesting or just ignore if you don't like something.  Why I chose to review your novel?It's been a long time since I've promised reviews for you and I truly hope you understand that I wasn't able to do it early because of some real life issues. As I said before, I always do what I promise, I'm sorry for it took time but your project is huge and I want to mention that I still didn't read all of it. I was reading your first and second version, the whole one, and latest version I've read six chapters only. My reviews are based on everything that I red and I will try to combine what I liked and also what I didn't like in every each one of them. I will also try to compare versions and to suggest to you some things you could use in the last versions from first two. While I was reading I realized that your first and second draft is mostly the same, you just edited some parts regardless sentences. I've noticed some of them are shorter from another and in some of them you tried to make visual effect. That I liked the most because while reading your book I've noticed some parts don't have great visual effect. (here I'm talking about some conversations, I will explain everything about it below so stay tuned  ). However, your latest version is totally different from the first two, you almost changed the whole order of the chapter and in this review I will focus on it the most. PrologueI was reading your prologue and I didn't want to review it until I finish the last chapter. I mentioned that I didn't read latest version till the end and that is the reason why I want to leave it last. However, I do like this one you wrote but I want to finish with a whole book so I can confirm it or to suggest something. First impression of first chapters/Versions 1,2 and the latest one!The very first thing I have noticed is that all three versions starts with beating Alexei at the school. I see you want to stick with it and it is totally fine to me. I was reading before books that starts with conversation first, I was also reading books where first paragraph starts with some description, kind of: 'once upon a time there was one village. In that village lived vampires.' The point is, as long as your book starts with clear vision of what is it all about or even if it starts rough, in this case beating, all of it has same purpose- to attract the reader at first. Honestly, to me it really doesn't matter if you start with 'once upon a time' or with something like fight or even conversation of two characters as long as it's good enough to attract me. Of course we would need to pay attention to not get distract the reader from the point and here I see you did just fine. You have just small paragraph of retrospective reading. Maybe you will hate this comparison but it reminded me on third movie of 'Twilight' - 'Eclipse' where it all started with biting Riley Biers by Victoria and making a whole new vampire army against Cullen's. But it is totally fine to me when we have an action at the beginning. The reader have no time to get bored. Some books can be really boring at the beginning, you also probably was reading some of them. And I like your first part of the chapter same like I liked 'Eclipse' part. It's interesting and keeps me want to read it. However, you split your chapter and that 'hospital part'. Latest version is not like first two. Here I see you focused first on the Valley Your sentence: The pain medication started to take effect, and Alexei faded into a dreamy state, remembering in graphic detail the course of events that brought him here. Everything since summer...leading us to Alexei's life before the Valley and then there is that 'once upon a time' part. Before the valley, Alexei had been happy as an average student in an average school... lost in the milieu of a big east city. In the first two versions you focused first more on the hospital happenings and meeting of Michael. Here you skipped that part at the beginning but you wrote it down in third chapter of the newest version. I like both but I like more the latest version. It is real retrospective story and you continued from the real beginning, Alexei's family. Part about school classes and how you presented them was great. I could totally relate to it. Nice description, well dialogue, just then and there I found something to consider. It's not too much but I will still talk about it below. When I finished first chapter of the latest version understood that, if you still continued with 'hospital part' in here as well then you, maybe wouldn't have space in your novel to write about how Alexei finished in the valley. So it is totally fine you write about it at the very first beginning. Names of the charactersIsn't it fascinating that in almost every vampire novel there is at least one Russian vampire? It's like the legend, it's fact that first vampires were Russians. It's almost the same when we have haunted houses mostly in California. Of course there is a lot of haunted places around the world, but mostly movies and books are focused on that part of the world. My point is that, it kind of fits..all those places fits to people, characters there. Alright, here is example: Vampire Christian or Vampire Bradly. It doesn't fits right? It gives me funny feeling. The names are very important in the book. They need to be related to the character they present, easy but difficult to remember, unique for every character, unusual but still very famous and popular when we pronounce them. Now, why I said all that about haunted places and Russian vampires? It is because names in your book are well related to the characters. You cannot be wrong with any of them because as I said mostly Russians are presented as ancient one, the one who started all this stories about vampires. If you google now anything about vampires you will find that most of them came from there, some of them of course coming from ancient Egypt or even Rome. Very rare is that some vampires are coming from, example- Holland, or I don't know, London. These cities are related to something else. Now, I know you asked me about names once when I first said I will review your book and I think, despite you're not related too much to Russia, neither am I, but your names sounds damn good. All of them, the way I pronounce them, I really do that, I even like Alexei's middle name Alyosha. My first neighbor's name is Alyosha only we write it different. We write it Aljosa but we pronounce it exactly the same. I have only one thing to consider about names. I was reading this chapter and first and second version but...what was the name of Alexei's parents? They are always 'mom' and 'dad', I'm not familiar with their names. Maybe you can squeeze some sentence about that, I don't know. Alexei and Zoelle- communication/Their agesBefore I say something on this subject I want you to please remember that this is just based on one person's opinion and nothing else. It can vary of course, but for now I feel all this what I will say. The first thing I have noticed was that your novel is 18+ rated but I was stunned by ages of your main characters. Alexei is only 14 before he will turn into Vamparisi and Zoelle is around 16. I just couldn't relate to it enough. With all due respect for you and for them but to me seems just a bit inappropriate for their ages to feel all that. Zoelle is still fine, I guess, I can imagine her, even though she is a teacher, a 16 years old teacher but that wouldn't be normal if she is 16 years old teacher in normal human school. In Morgan community she is still fine. I just couldn't imagine Alexei as 14 and in this role. The thing is, your Vamparisi are living creatures and they mature, they age, and they die. But still, you mentioned that the oldest living Vamparisi is around 400 years old. Which is fine. Now, as from their 'human' side I think this: I don't know if you ever read or watch, I will mention again Twilight because it seems that book is full of critic, good one and bad one and to me is great to compare a few things. I will focus now on bad one. In 'Twilight' we had Bella, weird, not accepted, not interesting too much for some life things, for lot of people her character is stupid. She had that approach during a whole trilogy and even when she finally turned into vampire she still looked stupid in most of the people's eyes. I wouldn't like to think about your Alexei as Bella. I know you wanted to show to readers that he was one of those students who are not much popular, like the story about 'Ugly duckling', at the end he turned into beautiful swan, but I couldn't relate to it because of his ages. When he started to turn into Vamparisi I realized that all of a sudden he was grown up. He wasn't that 'stupid teenager' anymore, he became smart and he was aware of what is going on around him and what is he now. That just hit me. When I say 'stupid teenager' I mean, he is not stupid of course, he is just less popular. That is my intention. In my country, I'll say again this opinion vary, but here person mature at the age of 18. Now, me as a girl have some thoughts about that. On inappropriate note you've been reading my blog entries and you are familiar of what happened with a man and me. I think that men will always have some 'childish' characteristic during their whole life. Not all of them of course, but most of them. Woman in society is different, she is complexed human being (I'm talking about things that man never go through such as birth process and her composition overall) but man, for mature, he will go through certain things necessary for it but man mature when his brain become wise enough to accept life things. He don't do that just like that. Look at it like this: women are different, they know when they mature, they know when is the time they can have their own family because their body requires the same. Man don't do that. In man's life things are happening and he can choose if he want to accept them or not. He can deny his maturity until his mind is wise enough to accept that, women don't. They have to accept that. Alexei has been hit with 'Vamparisi maturity' and I couldn't relate to it. How come with the age of 14 he is suddenly wise, he knows everything. Of course I know it's because of little help from the voice in his head but still.. it was too quick. I just want to say that maybe his ages are not enough for what he will SOON become. There is this attraction between Zoelle and Alexei and I understand man's desire for woman but at their ages to me looks kind of silly. Please, I hope you will understand me on this, I'm not suggesting to change anything but if your Alexei character is at least 17 years old I wouldn't have anything to say. The only good thing here that I can find is that you said Vamparisi do get old, they are not vampires and they wont be 14 forever which would be devastating. But they do live for a long period of time though. My suggestionsThird person! You're writing as third person your novel. It is fine, but I have found few sentences that are maybe outstanding to me while reading and I will list them Here ▼ Final thoughtVP class was something that I liked the most. You managed to explain to reader what is it all about and I appreciate it a lot. That is probably one of my favorite parts in your book. I wouldn't change anything there. As I said, you're master of dialogue and that is something I wouldn't have anything smarter to say. That's it for now. I truly hope you understood my review and why I was waiting for so long to finally start to give them. Your novel is huge, you have more than one version and I tried to be familiar with all of them. I'm still not, I said, I didn't finish the latest one but I gave you review just to tell you that I didn't forget whatever I said about your novel. So, see you in the next chapter which will be..I'm not sure. Maybe tomorrow let's just see. I don't like to give small reviews as you can see. ~Minja~ "The WDC Angel Army" check out my contest "Jane Austen Contest "  Be courageous and try to write in a way that scares you a little   My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
|
|||
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
You have not yet responded to this review.